âYouâll do as we tell you,â said NolanâMary knew it was him, and that he wasnât the leader after all. Grimly she nodded and tried to face them, begged herself to do so.
Fay touched the womanâs lovely soft hair, making her jump and look up.
Kevin was the one to say, âWeâve a meeting place, Mrs. Fraser. When the right time comes, weâll tell you of it.â
âYouâll be blindfolded,â said Fay. âIâll be the one what comes to take you there.â
They left her thenâleft her in the middle of nowhere again but with a British Army service revolver, she standing alone amid the clutter, weeping buckets and not knowing what to do.
âBastards!â she softly blurted. âYouâre all bastards, Erich especially!â
Kevin OâBannion watched her from the seclusion of the woods. Mrs. Mary Ellen Fraser pushed the bicycle out into the fleeting sunlight to stand there a moment. Then she did a curious thing for a woman who must surely wonder what must happen to her in the end. She lowered the bicycle to the ground and ran trailing fingers through the thickness of the waist-high Michaelmas daisies that crowded about her. Slowly, as if coming out of a dream and not a nightmare, she began to gather a bouquet and to smell them frequently, as though to banish the stench of what sheâd just been through.
When enough of them had been gathered, she found a wisp of straw and wrapped it tightly around the stems several times before tying it. First the gun went into the carrier basket, then the folded jacket and lastly the bouquet. He was impressed, for she would use the bouquet as a talking point if stopped on the road and questioned.
Leaning the bicycle against the wall of the smithy, she picked her way through to the house. Hesitantly she nudged the door open a crack to peer in and then, finally, to step inside, causing him to be dumbfounded at such a summoning of courage and resilience. He knew sheâd find among the refuse on the window sill the cast-off boots whose laces were gone, knew sheâd find the faded amber of forgotten photographs, the dark brown empties of Guinness, the broken teacups, littered straw and cobwebbed gas mask Padrick Darcy had once used in the trenches of France. The enamelled plaque of the Christ, too, with the words, Wherever I am hung, I am present .
Mary knew she was being watched even as she looked out through the window and tried to appear preoccupied, and when, having set down a still half-filled, stoppered bottle of tincture of iodine, she brushed the dust from her fingers and decided that it was time to leave, she came outside.
Kevinâshe still did not know his last nameâmet up with her on the path, she saying only, âIt was cruel of you people to have left me like that, but I got over it soon enough.â
âAre you really carrying his child?â
âYouâll have to wonder about that just as Iâm wondering myself.â
The water was hot and when she had lowered herself into the tub, her skin grew pink. Steam floated about the place. Stretching out, Mary tilted back her head and shut her eyes, let herself go limp, went right under. She had to unwind, was still far too tense. It had taken guts to have ridden into Ballylurgen with that revolver in the carrier basket but sheâd forced herself to do it, hadnât wanted them to think her weak, had known theyâd somehow still be watching. The Irish made good sausages and even though rationed, she had managed a pound and some kippers. One couldnât trample kitchen toes at home, though, so she hadnât bought someone elseâs soda bread and barmbrach that was light with beaten eggs 2 and yeast yet so well speckled with dried fruit she had momentarily forgotten the war. Both Catholic shops of course, both Republicans, it being that sort of day.
A fruit tart and then a custard one had been for herself, secretly
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